Chapter One - Soliloquy

Of all the people in the world that I know
You're the best place to go when I cry,
when I cry

-Why, Judy, why

“Yo, Sharpy, get your ass over here for a second!”

Charles’ voice is rough and deep, a bass tone with edges that usually either rubs people the wrong way or make them sigh wantonly. He knows this, but he also knows that Emma won’t respond in either of those two ways when he calls for her, because for six years now she’s never given him one of those looks. When he sees her head sticking up behind the selection of jazz music he holds up his hand and motions for her to come over. He sees her delicate eyebrows form a little frown, and inwardly he’s chuckling because he can tell that she’s thinking ‘what now?’.

He follows her movements with his brown eyes while pretending that he’s staring at something else. Emma doesn’t like it when he observes her so quietly- it makes her too self-aware and eager to shield herself with some snappy comment that makes the corners of his mouth quirk upward in poorly hidden amusement. And now that she is approaching the counter he can’t help but think that she is such a fragile-looking, little thing, his Emma.

Her auburn hair is cut short like a boy because she doesn’t like the curls she gets when it grows out, but even now the locks are curling around the shells of her ears in defiance. Charles knows that Emma pictures her self as a tomboy, and the thin limbs and flat chest do nothing to prove her otherwise. She’s small for a grown woman, or even for a girl, but Charles saves his teasing remarks for another day. Today she has been quiet, almost withdrawn, and teasing her will only make her clamp up further in her shell. She stops before the counter and looks at him quizzically with her strange, light grey eyes and she waits. Her hands are lodged safely in her pockets and tell him exactly how impatient she really is, and how she doesn’t want to let him know that.

“There’s a new shipment coming in tomorrow morning with special orders. I need you to open the store and get started on notifying the customers, okay? I got an appointment with the devil.” He scrunches up his nose and feels a shiver run up his spine from just thinking about his dentist.

Emma wrinkles the bridge of her freckle dusted nose in understanding and gives a non-committal shrug. “Sure, I’ll manage. The keys are in your office, right?” Her voice is quiet and calm, the exact opposite of Charles’ own voice, though that is hardly the only difference between the two of them.

“Yeah, probably under the newspaper.”

They both know that ‘probably’ doesn’t mean anything when it comes to where Charles leaves his keys. Every once in a blue moon Emma finds them where he thinks he has left them, but it’s not certain at all. Charles is scatterbrained by nature, but Emma learnt how to live with it by now. Six years is a long time to spend in another person’s company. Sometimes she can’t help but wonder how he manages to run the music store at all when he can’t even keep track of his own keychain. It’s a mystery.

“Were you done with the jazz?” He puts his arms down on the counter and leans halfway across the desk with a little smile.

“Almost,” she replies.

“Well, leave the rest for tomorrow then. I feel like closing up for the night.”

He sees the frown on her face deepen for a moment before softening, and he doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that she’s thinking about how childish and irresponsible he can be. Charles doesn’t mind. He firmly believes that keeping part of your inner child alive even as a grown up is vital to the quality of your life. Emma too has an inner child of her own, but it’s a shy child that doesn’t come out to play very often, so Charles tries to make up for it with his smiles and nonsense.

“Okay. I’ll go turn off the lights in the back.” Emma slips past him like a mouse, all quiet and hardly even there, and Charles begins to hum an old tune while he locks up the cash register and checks that the drawers too are safe. He leans against the counter while waiting for his younger co-worker, and one by one the lights go out and he’s suddenly in a very dark music store.

Emma emerges, and Charles can hear the jingling of the keys that are securely tucked away in her jacket pocket.

“Let’s get going then,” he merrily announces and makes his way towards the door, Emma following behind without speaking a word. He ponders on the why of her silence tonight; if she got a phone call from her family or if the cat she likes to feed hasn’t been waiting for her recently. There could be a million reasons to cause her mood, but Charles doesn’t like to pry. Emma enjoys her privacy, and though she would tell if he asked he thinks it’s better not to.

He waits while she locks the door behind them and shakes it to make sure it’s properly locked.

“Don’t stay up tonight, Sharpy,” he tells her.

She smiles a little and nods her head, aware that he noticed her mood for quite some time now.

“I won’t,” she promises and bids him good night.

Charles walks in the opposite direction, but he stops to look over his shoulder, just in time to see her small back disappear around the corner of a nearby building.

-

By half past ten Emma has returned to her little apartment on the first floor of an old apartment complex ten minutes from work and put away her jacket and sneakers. She puts on a kettle with water and skims through the day's newspaper. The headlines tell her nothing important or remotely interesting except for the announcement of a concert she wants to see. But even that is two months away, and she still has to save up a bit of money for the two tickets she wants, so she puts away the newspaper with a little sigh. The kettle starts whining soon enough, so Emma turns off the stove and pours the steaming, hot water into a cup and adds a bag of blackberry tea. It smells wonderful and is just the thing she needs after a tiresome day.

Her eyes stray to the phone on the wall, and she frowns as she remembers the call she received yesterday from her older sister. It had been a short conversation, quite meaningless too, and Emma had hung up with mixed emotions that made her chest clench uncomfortably. She doesn’t want a repeat of that for a long time, so she unplugged the phone before going to bed last night.

She drinks the tea while staring at the wall with far away eyes, and only when there is no more left does she snap out of it and go to brush her teeth. Her body is tired from standing and walking around at work, and maybe a little from the lack of sleep. Though, that time of the month is approaching too, so part of the fatigue and dull ache in her body might be blamed on that. A good night’s rest will fix her enough that she can go to work tomorrow morning and still be able to smile at the customers at eight o’clock.

Already as she steps into the bathroom she begins yawning and rubbing her eyes sleepily, and she brushes her teeth in a state of half sleep before changing into her PJs. She turns off the lights and climbs into her welcoming, cozy bed. The cold sheets makes her shiver, but they quickly warm up and let her float away.

But even though her body is tired and ready to sleep, her mind is filled with thoughts and smells and pictures. She remembers the smell of thick, black curls tickling her nose and cheeks and the numb look in a pair of eyes the colour of stardust; brown sprinkled so beautifully with yellow and gold and green. She remembers the shape of his mouth as his teeth chew mercilessly on that bottom lip and the silent, frightened whisper in her ear of ‘I can’t sleep, Em’, and the restless rustling of clothes afterwards.

All of these things occupy her mind and leave her worn out, but wide awake in the darkness of her own bedroom. She lies on her back and stares up at the shadows moving across the ceiling and tries to picture that they are creatures like dragons and dogs that play. It helps her relax a little, and as her eyes fall shut it is those brown, childish eyes and black curls she is thinking of.

-

To Emma, morning is a routine like any other. She washes, brushes her teeth, dresses and drinks her cup of tea before she leaves for work. It is 07.40 in the morning, but the streets are blessedly empty in this part of town, and she walks to work while enjoying the silence around her. It is chilly now, but the sun will heat everything up in a couple of hours, and by the time she eats her lunch it will be warm enough to go outside without a sweater.

Emma opens up the music store and flickers on the lights. A bit of this and a bit of that needs to be done, but soon enough she is sitting behind the counter reading one of the magazines Charles likes. It’s a strange one; she doesn’t quite know how to categorize it since it contains a bit of everything. Most of all she enjoys reading the columns about peculiar words on pages 34-35. Today she muses over the word ‘beleaguer’ and says it out loud several times because she likes how it tastes on her tongue. It’s a word that tastes like something old and strange.

Sometimes she thinks it’s a wonder how odd and inconsistent the English language can be, and she adds beleaguer to the list she keeps hidden in a drawer. It’s a list that keeps growing, in the form of the pages of a note book, and she doesn’t think it ever will stop.

Forty minutes pass before the first customer arrives, and when he does Emma puts away the silly magazine and watches him with curious eyes and a charming smile. The man is older than her by a couple of years, and Emma can’t help but stare at the dark goatee on his chin or the tattoo of a star on his left cheek. He’s a strange man, but he greets her with a friendly wave of his hand before he walks over to the rock section and begins his search. He reminds her of someone.

She likes the way he moves so fluidly despite his tall height, and Emma scolds herself for thinking such things about a customer. So to take her mind off it, she finds Charles’ black book and begins to mark off the things for their next order with a ballpoint pen. It is tedious work, but Charles will be pleased not to have to do it himself when he comes to work later.

Time drifts by slowly, or so it feels like to Emma, but when the man approaches the counter with a CD in his hand she forgets about time and smiles pleasantly up at him. His eyes are dark too, she notices.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hello, miss,” he says back with a nod of his head. His short, dark hair is gel-spiked and kind of funny looking. When he hands her the CD she almost freezes and blurts out something silly, because he has just handed her her own favourite album- River of Dreams from 1993 by Billy Joel.

“It’s a good CD,” she smiles while registering the buy on the computer. The man arches an eyebrow, and then he shows her a toothy grin.

“I know. I’ve got it already. I’m just buying it for a friend, ‘cuz he’ll just ruin mine if I lend it to him.”

Emma laughs softly at that. “That will be 5.98, thank you.”

The man hands her the money and puts the CD into a pocket on his jeans jacket. He looks like he wants to say something else, but changes his mind at the very last moment. Instead he nods again and flashes a bright smile at her before walking away.

“Bye,” he says over his shoulders as he pushes his way through the door. He is gone before Emma can tell him the same, and once again she is left in her own company.

She thinks about the man’s dark, nearly black hair and brown eyes and how they remind her of someone she knows but would rather not think about. It can’t be helped though- that someone has been on her mind for a whole week now, and she knows she needs to call him and make up soon. But she also knows how hard it will be to listen to his low, whispered words through the phone, and that is the one reason she hasn’t picked up the phone yet.

Emma knows that he needs her and probably thinks about her more than she thinks about him, and she feels her heart clench a little because she has been ignoring him for far too long. He doesn’t deserve it, even if their argument was his fault in the first place.

Her thoughts are interrupted when a man walks through the door with a large box in his arms. He grimaces, and Emma rushes to help him put the box down on the floor.

“Mornin’, Emma,” he greets her, and she smiles back at him.

“Good morning, Sam.”

They are not friends, but Sam is the one that usually shows up with their deliveries, and he is always pleasant to chat with. Emma likes the way his laugh sounds when he’s happy and the way it’s so easy to talk to him.

“Only one box for you this time, I’m afraid,” he smiles and hands her a form that she signs with a borrowed pen. He tucks the clipboard with the form on under his arm and puts his hands in his pockets.

“But that’s better for us both, no?”

“Yeah, you’re right. My back is stiff ‘cause I slept poorly last night. My girlfriend went and bought a new mattress for our bed, but I’m not enjoying it too much,” he says and shrugs.

“Tell her or get used to it, Sam,” Emma chuckles, and Sam looks a little embarrassed.

“Can’t do that, you know. She sleeps like a baby now- wouldn’t want to ruin that.” He checks his watch and frowned. “I’m actually running a little late today, so I got to dash. Next time I wouldn’t mind another cup of that coffee of yours, Emma. Tell Charles I said hello.”

The two men are drinking buddies, and that relationship goes far back.

“I’ll will, so shush now,” she says and laughs at the funny look on his face when she ushers him through the door. She stands there watching him while he gets back into his truck and drives off.

The shift passes by slowly, with a couple of customers stopping by every now and then, and by the time Charles arrives Emma is enjoying a home made sandwich with cucumber and cheese behind the counter. She greets him with a nod of her head since her mouth is full, and Charles’ deep laughter rumbles in his chest.

“Being a vegetarian isn’t healthy for a girl of your size, Sharpy,” he mildly scolds her, partly because he wants to see her make that sweet face at him. She does, without fail, glare up at him for those words, but there is hardly any menace in her grey eyes. They both know he’s teasing. He disappears into the back for a moment to put away his jacket and turn on the coffee machine.

“And coffee isn’t healthy for someone who’s just had a dentist drilling in their teeth,” she says and leans back in her chair to be able to see him.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry- no holes this time.”

She watches him move around the back office with ease and familiarity and she knows that Charles probably spends as much time in the store as he does in his own home. His face is relaxed and content, and Emma‘s eyes drift to the tattoos on his bald head. For the nth time she wonders why he has roman numbers tattooed onto his scalp and why he won’t answer her when she asks.

“Sam told me to say hello,” she remembers and stuffs the last bit of the sandwich into her mouth. Charles turns his head to look at her and chuckles, and Emma relaxes when she looks at his face. His mood is infectious, as always, and though she has been brooding all day she can’t keep it up now that he is here. Her boss and friend is a laid back and easy going person, and Emma knows she relies on him more than she would like to admit.

“I’ll give him a call later. You want to go home?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, go get your jacket then.”

Emma joins him in the back, which is small enough that her back brushes against his when she reaches out for her jacket. Their kitchen is tiny, but homey, and sometimes Emma thinks that she likes it better than the one in her apartment. Charles’ back feels warm and safe, and she lingers just a little longer than necessary to appreciate the feeling. If he notices then he doesn’t tell her. Instead he pats her shoulder when she moves away.

“Call that boy of yours, won’t you? I don’t want to see you moping around on Monday.”

Again he speaks in that mildly scolding voice of his, so Emma nods.

“I will. See you on Monday, Charles.”

Anxious butterflies flutter in her stomach at the thought of speaking to him again.

As she leaves Charles picks up his coffee mug with a sigh and shakes his head slightly.

-

When Emma comes home there are two messages waiting for her. The machine blinks red, and she presses a button to play the first message. At first there is nothing but silence and the slight crackle of background noise picked up from the other end of the line that called. Then a voice speaks up, and Emma feels her mouth run dry as she listens.

“Hi, it’s Joe. Um, you probably don’t want to talk to me…Just wanted to say that I miss you, Emma.”

There is a long pause, and Emma feels the longing come rushing back to her. Her tongue feels like a ball of cotton inside her mouth, and she wonders how she could forget the sound of that voice. She touches her ear with a trembling hand and stares at the machine.

“I miss you...a lot. I’m sorry I badmouthed him, okay? I know you’ve been friends for ages. I just got jealous, is all.” Joe laughs nervously then, and Emma recalls how that same laugh could sound so entirely different when he was happy. He’d laughed so whole heartily with her that sometimes she forgets that there is a more anxious side to him.

“Give me call if you want to talk, ‘kay? Not that I expect you to, but…I’d be happy if you called me. Bye, Emma.”

There is a beep as the message ends, and Emma wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and takes a deep breath. She wants to call Joe and say that it is okay now, that they can see each other again, but she can’t. The break up had been bad, very bad, for the both of them. There had been shouting and slamming with doors, and Emma spent the day after crying in her bed while her phone constantly rang.

She hasn’t seen Joe since then, and she hasn’t seen the object of their argument either.

The second message begins playing, and she jumps when a loud noise breaks the silence. Something just broke, and she listens to the shuffling of feet across a floor and low, mumbled curses. She already knows who has left this message for her, and the tears rush back and threaten to roll down her cheeks. She almost forgets all about Joe, because this is the one person that is on her mind whether she sleeps, eats or showers.

His voice is low, close to whispering, and she feels relief to hear him again. She wishes that the tremble in his voice wasn’t there because of her.

“Em…Emmy?” he starts. “Are you mad still? I don’t like it when you’re mad, Em. I’m sorry I did that. Just…” A sharp intake of breath sizzles through his clenched teeth. “I want to come over again. It’s lonely. I can’t sleep.”

Emma knows it’s true. She imagines that he hasn’t slept for days and days, and his large, brown eyes have dark rings under them while he stares at the wall and wraps his arms around his head. In her mind she can see him curled up in the bathtub, crying silently while missing her, and her heart softens.

How could she ever ignore him?

“Call me back, Em? Please? I’ll be good.”

There is another beep, and there are no more messages for her.

She picks up the phone without hesitation and dials the all too familiar number. And when he picks up she feels herself smile a little at the sound of his tired greeting.

“Tale, it’s me. Won’t you come over for a while?”

Emma thinks of Joe, of his sweet, shy personality, and though she misses him the longing is not quite as bad now that she hears the surprised, but happy outburst from the boy on the other end of the line.